Amid Postal Chaos, Reform Direly Needed 

It’s recently been a while ride at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Shortly after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced he will soon step down, reports emerged that President Donald Trump is mulling firing the agency’s governing board and folding the USPS into the Commerce Department. Whether this is true, the USPS’ next leader — or supervising agency — has their work cut out for them as they try to reverse years of financial losses and frayed trust with consumers. America’s mail carrier needs a bold new vision to turn things around.  

When new USPS leadership emerges, their first big decision will be whether to continue DeJoy’s Delivering for America (DFA) plan. Under this multi-year reform strategy, the agency has started to consolidate mail processing, slow down mail service, repeatedly raise prices, phase out (some) air transportation, and double down on its career workforce.

This has been a mixed bag — to put things generously. The Postal Regulatory Commission recently analyzed the DFA in-depth, and found that the USPS “relies on overly optimistic and unsubstantiated financial projections for cost savings that are not likely to improve the financial health of the Postal Service.” Moreover, the DFA “depends on defective modeling and does not appear to be ready for implementation.” Price hikes are likely turning away more consumers than anticipated, leading to middling revenue. This revenue is stretched thin against a tsunami of compensation and benefit costs. The agency insists on prioritizing a career workforce even though career workers cost the agency about $8 more per hour than their non-career counterparts.  

Even if new postal leadership wants to keep consolidating facilities and moving away from costly air deliveries, it will need to halt price hikes and career hires. DeJoy’s successor should restore trust with consumers by committing to limit postage increases to the rate of inflation. Additionally, the new leader should announce a dynamic hiring strategy focused on inexpensive non-career hires that could work seasonally or part-time depending on the USPS’ shifting needs.  

For even greater savings, the agency must also think outside the envelope. Currently, the USPS delivers six days a week (Monday through Saturday), and thanks to the expansion of its package business, often on Sundays too. However, postal agencies in other countries are moving away from this costly model. Recently, Royal Mail in the United Kingdom announced that Saturday deliveries would no longer be available for non-urgent letters.  

The USPS has considered this idea before. Agency leadership suggested a five-day delivery plan (with some wiggle room for Saturday package deliveries) in its Five-Year Business Plan in 2013 and concluded that it would save $1.9 billion per year. That’s $2.6 billion after adjusting for inflation, which is about a third of the average USPS annual loss over the past couple of years.

Consumers certainly seemed to be on board. In 2015, the inspector general surveyed consumers on whether six days of delivery was worth it at various stamp price points. The watchdog found that a large majority of consumers favored five-day delivery at any price point over 50 cents. Now that the price of a first-class stamp is 73 cents and rapidly rising, it’s reasonable to think consumers prefer five days of delivery over six. However, postal leadership would likely need Congress’ help to implement this idea because of the restrictive language of the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act.  

There’s no shortage of options to lower costs at the USPS. New postal management — no matter who it is — can save taxpayers and consumers billions of dollars with a bold strategy to get the agency back into the black.  

This was originally published as an op-ed in Issues & Insights.